That’s the question Fisheries and Oceans Canada wants to answer after a season of unprecedented measures to protect North Atlantic right whales — including mandatory ship slowdowns and fisheries closures.

To date, none of the critically endangered whales has died in Canadian waters in 2018, unlike in 2017, when 12 died in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, largely due to ship strikes and entanglements in fishing gear.

That loss represented about three per cent of the world’s population, which is now hovering around 450.

On the East coast, the department (DFO) is now holding regional meetings with members of the fishing industry to gather feedback on those management measures.

Next month, a committee of marine-mammal experts from DFO and other organizations will meet to review the scientific data on the distribution of whales in the region.

“We essentially need to talk to everyone who is going to be potentially impacted,” said MP Sean Casey, parliamentary secretary for the fisheries minister. “The outreach will include roundtables with people who have expertise to offer, or involvement, and potential consequences.”

Those will include Indigenous partners, marine shippers, scientists and governments, as well as fisheries groups.

“All of those discussions need to be had in order to determine what adjustments are needed from what we did last summer.”

As for whether the approach taken last summer needs changing, that depends on whom you ask, Casey said. Some stakeholders do feel there should be adjustments, “so they need to be listened to. They need to be respected and their input needs to be weighed.

“Frankly, it’s primarily harvesters that are concerned with the economic impact on their livelihood, and whether the measures that are taken unduly infringe upon them,” Casey continued. “That’s certainly one voice that we’re hearing. We need to weigh their concerns against all the other factors.”

But the reality is that 12 whales died in Canadian waters in 2017 and none died in 2018, he stressed.

“The question that you ask yourself is: Did we use the least drastic measures to get from one spot to another? If we didn’t, what adjustments do we make so that the negative impacts on others are minimized?”

To avoid a repeat of 2017’s catastrophic loss, this past March, then-fisheries minister Dominic LeBlanc announced the federal government would be imposing mandatory slowdowns of 10 knots on ships over 20 metres in length in areas where whales were spotted last year — primarily the western Gulf.

Research has shown that right whales can survive strikes at that speed. That slowdown began in April and will continue until Nov. 15, but the zones and dates may change, as needed, as whales migrate through the area. Fines for violating the slowdown will range from $6,000 to $25,000.

In addition to the mandatory speed reduction, temporary slowdowns can also be imposed for 15 days when a whale is spotted in the shipping lanes. Surveillance flights over the Gulf were increased this year to monitor the fishery and to watch for whales.

The government also imposed fishery closures throughout the summer. A large fixed closure zone in the southern Gulf along New Brunswick’s northern coast remained in place until June 30. It’s a known area where right whales forage and where most of the right whales were observed in 2017.

DFO also enforced dynamic (temporary) management closures, which shut down fixed-gear fisheries for 15 days once a right whale was spotted in an area. The closure times were extended if a whale stuck around or was joined by others.

A spokeswoman added: “The government of Canada is committed to taking all necessary actions to help protect North Atlantic right whales from further harm.”

Last week at the annual conference of the Fisheries Council of Canada, Casey told attendees to be aware of the possibility that changes to Canada’s approach will be necessary in order to comply with the Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA) in the United States. This strong and far-reaching piece of legislation has the power to bring imports from a fishery to a halt if there’s proof that activity is causing whales harm.

Given the volume of fish exported south of the border — including 85 per cent of Canadian lobster exports — satisfying the threshold set out in the legislation matters.

“Co-operation is key to protect access to the U.S. market,” Casey said.

Earlier this year, the Gulf’s lucrative snow-crab fishery lost its international — and much sought after — designation as being environmentally sustainable, following the right-whale deaths.

The organization said that in four areas — designated as areas 12, 12E, 12F and 19 — “the fishery no longer meets the MSC Fishery Standard related to endangered, threatened and protected species.”

According to the council, the Gulf’s snow crab fishery will undergo a combined audit, which is scheduled for mid-November. One part of that will review the corrective action plan submitted by the fishery to consider lifting the suspension. The second part involves the regular annual fishery audit to ensure it continues to meet all other standards set out by the council.

The annual audit report generally comes within two months, but a decision on the suspension may be released earlier.

In a scathing report last week, Canada’s environment commissioner said Canada has long failed to protect marine mammals from the threats posed by marine vessels and commercial fishing — and is only now starting to act, as some species teeter on the brink of extinction.

Commissioner Julie Gelfand found that while existing policies and tools proactively manage threats faced by marine mammals, Canada hasn’t fully applied those tools. She said it took the death of the 12 right whales and the world’s attention to shame the government into action.

The audit was conducted from Jan. 1, 2012, to June 1, 2018, so it did not encompass the more recent measures. Casey said a lot of science went into this year’s measures.

Other have suggested it was the prospect of losing access to the U.S. market due to provisions in the MMPA that finally forced the government to act.

Casey denied that was the case.

“When this is happening, there are things other than access to the U.S. market that are important: the health of the ecosystem, the biodiversity. The access to the U.S. market is part of it, but it’s not all of it.”